Yesterday notable indie developer Jason Rohrer (best known for such indie titles as The Passage and Sleep Is Death) quietly started taking early orders for his next game, The Castle Doctrine. The Castle Doctrine is an online focused game where the player must protect his spouse and children from home invaders.

By the same token he can also invade other players' homes and rob them. Since every player has someone to look after it is not inconceivable to come home and find that your family has been murdered by an intruder and that your "castle" has been completely emptied. One of the many ways players fight against invasions is by spending all their money on home security measures. Basically it is the ultimate player versus player game, but the consequences of everyone's actions are far reaching and deep.

Which is why yesterday's announcement that you could buy the game early for $8 was interesting because Rohrer is also giving those early adopters access to the alpha version of the game. The game is available DRM-free and available for Windows and Mac systems. Source code is also available for Linux users, and you can run your own server as long as it supports PHP/MySQL. The price also includes downloads of all future updates and a lifetime account on the main game server.